The Stars In Your Veins
by From Thessia To Rannoch
Summary: The Machine orders Root to take some R&R for the sake of her own health as well as the mission's, but she and Shaw get pulled into a very complicated situation involving an endangered youth. Eventual RootxShaw. Starts off in season 3. Spoilers present. Rated M for: violence, language, content relating to suicide, discussion of torture (serious stuff, but lighthearted things, too.)
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: Hey there! I really enjoyed writing this, and I figured if I was having fun, maybe someone else might too! Hope you enjoy reading this, and if you wanna make a girl happy, leave me a little comment once you're done. And if you're a busy lady or a busy gent, I get it! Have a nice day, everybody :)_

Root's boot soles pounded into the pavement. She tore across the street. Headlights flowed over her black coat and brown hair. Cars hissed to a stop and the drivers pounded their horns, but Root kept running after him. She pursued her target into a dark alleyway drenched with the smell of piss and metal, and she thought she had him when he came to a ragged halt in front of a chain link fence. A smirk stretched along Root's face. Her gun rose up to eye level. The trigger was halfway in when there was a loud shove behind her. In the darkness, she hadn't even seen that there was a door leading out into the alley. Two men hopped through it, shoulders stiff, arms out to their sides. Before Root could do anything, she was surrounded. The man she had been chasing was stalking towards her now; _she_ was the hunted. She saw a metallic flash in the meager lighting and knew that he had a knife in his hand. _Well,_ she thought, feeling her pulse accelerate. _This complicates things._

She jerked her left elbow back, making contact with some part of one of the goons' bodies. Her right arm pointed her gun out again and she pulled the trigger as fast as she could, but a burly hand latched onto her bicep from behind and made her shot go askew. Her heart rate tripled. She felt her chest thrumming with anxiety, and though she couldn't see much, she could _feel_ everything: the hard, unforgiving contact of the ground against her back as she was thrown down, the vibrations of the men's laughs against her braille skin, and the red-hot impact of a bludgeoning fist against her face.

Root saw black and red and the reflection of the moon in a wet spot on the ground that smelled like gasoline. She kicked out, jerked her limbs this way and that to avoid being restrained. She knew that if these three men got as far as holding her down, she was done for. No back up was coming. Once she actually hit something she found the opportunity to point the gun in her hand just by twisting her wrist off the ground. She fired three times and, according to a sudden outcry, hit someone. There was a brief cessation of battering. It felt like Root's kicked-in abdomen was going to burst. There was one man still holding onto her, his leg holding her down while he raised one arm to punch her. Root twisted her head away, but the movement put her left shoulder squarely under the man's falling fist. She screamed against the pain. It came down like a sledgehammer. Panic flaring, she swung her free arm with all of her strength and terror, and she dug her gun into the side of his head.

Root's brain was telling her to scramble away, but all she could do was roll onto her knees then rise unsteadily onto her feet. She staggered a few feet away, bracing her back against the alleyway wall, and shot the man she had just whipped. And then she shot them once more each for good measure.

She wasted no time in patting down the three dying men. "Where's the flash drive?" she barked, her voice hoarse and raw, like the wound forming on her face. His only response was to cough blood at her, dotting Root's bruised skin with flecks of red. She pushed his face away with the point of her gun and continued to check his pockets. She felt a small object, cool and smooth, and despite it all she tilted her head to the side in her coy, happy way and smiled to herself.

She tried to take a deep breath but it felt like her lungs were trying to break through her rib cage. Her breath grated against her pain, and she suddenly had to stagger back over to the wall to hold herself up. One hand clutched at her abdomen where she had been kicked several times. Her heart quivered in her chest. In the back of her mind she noted the feeling of warm blood drizzling from her nose, but she was too panicked by her buckling legs. She had to get out of the alleyway, she had to find her way to some safe place before she collapsed. Root hobbled out of the alleyway, still holding onto the corner of the building for support. She looked around the street for a familiar blinking red light or a payphone, anything to remind her that she was not alone.

And then she heard Her voice, and Root smiled before she even knew what The Machine was saying.

Root had almost forgotten that she enjoyed the simple things. Apparently it took multiple near-death experiences to get a girl to appreciate life's little luxuries, like the delicate wisp of steam billowing up from her cup of tea cradling her chin; the feeling of a paperback in her fingers. But Root wasn't one to idle; it had taken a direct command from The Machine to get its most dedicated operative to recuperate. " _Romeo, ampersand, Romeo. Romeo, ampersand, Romeo._ " The first thing Root had was stare up at the nearest video camera and say in a syrupy tone, "Sweet of you to worry, but I'd feel better if I had something productive to do." But The Machine gave her the same command. Root couldn't gauge whether The Machine was telling Root to back off for her own good or because Root might start doing shoddy work in her condition— or, well, continue to.

She hadn't been on her A-game, that much Root could admit without feeling ashamed of herself, but she knew that to stop there would be dishonest by omission. In the week since Control interrogated Root, The Machine had her running around the streets of New York stealing, blue-jacking, and fighting one person or another. Root was successful with each mission, but she was never quite fast enough to avoid the extra scrapes her operations dealt her. Matter of fact, her lip pulsated painfully when she brought her teacup up to her mouth. She winced, setting the hot drink back down on her table. The pain made her feel a sudden heaviness in her hematoma-marred shoulders. Root set her book down tent-style. She no longer had the energy to read or process anything that wasn't directly triggering her fight-or-flight instincts. The Machine had been unspecific about how much time Root should alot to rest, but "resting" only made Root feel worse. Having a purpose at her heels like hot coals was the only thing keeping her from shutting down. But she had to admit that kind of relentlessness would eventually run her into the ground, and so Root found herself sitting in Donnie's Teatopia, resting her head against the cool drizzly window, fighting the urge to fall asleep...

* * *

Shaw laced her fingers together and stretched them far out in front of her, rewarding her and Reese with the peppery sound of her knuckles cracking. She flexed her neck left and right. "Feels good to kick ass," she affirmed, bouncing her weight from foot to foot. Reese side-eyed her buoyancy. He only ever saw Shaw that way after she kicked someone's ass in a particularly spectacular way. He made a small catch-me-if-you-can sort of smile. She pretended not to notice.

Impatiently, she asked, "And where's the lunch you promised?"

"Right," Reese said. He turned his body barely five degrees towards Shaw. "Lionel's catering."

Shaw narrowed her eyes. "Lionel? _Really?_ He has better taste in clothes than food, and we both know..." Her words fizzed out as the aforementioned detective made his appearance. He was marching down the sidewalk with a brown bag swinging in his paw. Shaw noticed a smudge on the lapel of his suit that wasn't there before. He had a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

"You keep nagging me about my lack of cultural exposure, well, here you go." He dug a hand into the bag and produced a long pudgy mass wrapped in tin foil. "Beef burrito."

Shaw's head swung forward incredulously, but she snatched the warm food item out of his hands. Unwrapping it, she muttered, "Really, Fusco, this is your idea of being worldly? Look, this isn't even— this is just a shit pile of baked beans and unidentifiable meat wrapped in a tortilla." Fusco's eyebrows went slanted and his mouth sank into a grimace, but Shaw was already turned around and walking down the street. She liked a good burrito like any reasonable carnivore, but Lionel had just handed her the inedible, bleeding Edsel of all Tex-Mex.

Fusco shook his head, then held the greasy bag out to Reese. Instead of uttering his refusal out loud, Reese just focused his eyes on Shaw, who had just chucked the collapsing brown mass into a nearby trash can.

It was cold in the city, and the wind that day whipped between the buildings with extra indignation. Shaw wanted to stick her cold, greasy hands in her pockets but knew better. Instead, they chilled and cracked at her sides. She kept her eyes out for a place where she could boost some napkins without there being a cashier to guilt trip her into buying something, but Shaw had apparently set off down the one street in New York that wasn't lined with food carts. Eventually, she came upon some hipstery tea shop, Donnie's Teatopia. And when she looked in the window something other than napkins caught her eye, and she knew suddenly that it could be no coincidence.

She saw Root sitting inside at a booth. Her brown hair was cascading out the bottom of her knitted hat, head leaning against a window befogged at the corners by frost. She had a dullness to her eyes that Shaw had never seen before, had never even suspected Root was able to possess; after all, The Machine's pet had an extraordinarily— and infuriatingly— unbreakable spirit. More concerning was the fact that Root hadn't even noticed Shaw walk into Donnie's Teatopia, and that Root visibly jumped when Shaw sat down across from her.

"Root," Shaw grunted, part greeting, part warning, mostly just an acknowledgment that something must be wrong. She clawed out a napkin from the dispenser at Root's table. "What is it now?" She mashed her hand into the greyish napkin and then crumpled it up in her hand.

The winter light pooling in through the window had a thick shimmering quality to it. It settled coldly on Root's skin, which Shaw noted looked paler than usual. There were purple-red bags under those eyes that were lacking their usual amber glimmer. But then, after Root focused her vision on the operative across the table from her, a small spark of liveliness returned to her features as she bent her lips into a smirk.

"If you wanted to get a coffee with me, you could've just asked," Root joked in her sickening, saccharine way. Shaw's brow twitched in annoyance.

"It's tea."

"Sometimes I forget how sharp you are, Sameen," the hacker sent back, her smirk breaking into a self-satisfied grin, "but never for long." She dared a wink, and when Shaw gave her a whip-like sneer, Root had to look away to control her laugh. It was never hard for her to get a reaction out of Shaw. Shaw watched the amusement bubble up in Root's throat and escape in three light giggles— and there, again, was the sparkle in her eyes. Root almost looked like her normal self, just anemic and injured.

Shaw looked out the window at anything else.

"Seriously, Root. What's going on?" Root sobered up, speculative eyes trained on Shaw. "There's no such thing as coincidences." There was a pause, and then Root gave a small laugh that was more relieved than mischievous. Her eyes cast down to the table as her two hands went to cradle her steaming cup of tea, sleeves pulled over her fingers. She went to sip the warm drink, carefully this time, and she managed to avoid aggravating her bruised lip. The warm steam felt good on her face. She held the cup under her chin while she spoke.

"Well, if you didn't receive any instructions from Her to come find me, then this really is just a..." She gave her head a jaunty tilt. "Happy coincidence." She smiled, because she knew Shaw wouldn't call it that. "I'm just taking a break, Shaw." Shaw said nothing, leaning back in her seat and crossing her arms over her navel. Maybe she'd believe her.

Her eyes flicked around the area. The tea place was dimly lit, almost excessively so; she wondered if the owners were going for a nice ambiance or if they were just trying to cut back on their electrical bill. There was a dark iron furnace against the wall behind Root's seat, belching out warm air that Shaw could feel a little too intensely on her cheeks. At least a dozen people were in the room, half of them coupled up with somebody with whom they spoke, laughed, took photos with. Shaw watched one clean and pearly couple cradle together as the man reached his arm up to point his phone down at him and his girl. She watched them plaster on their picture smiles.

Shaw's eyes fell on the book on Root's table. _The Rainy Day Anthology of American Short Stories._ She wondered which one Root was reading, and then reminded herself that it was unimportant. She probably wouldn't know it, anyway. And if she was dumb enough to ask, she was sure Root would find _some_ way to produce an obnoxious innuendo— because it was Root, after all— and then proceed to never shut up about it.

They made brief eye contact, and she saw the corner of the hacker's mouth twitch downwards. Root looked down at her book, and all of a sudden her expression folded in on itself in a grave, contemplative way. Her lips separated just a little bit as her eyes went to no place in particular while some occupying thought wracked her mind. Then, Root scooped up the book and pulled it under the table onto her lap just to get it out of view, out of her thoughts.

Shaw squirmed. She didn't like feeling like she had perpetrated Root's discomfort. Shaw thought briefly about saying something to lighten the mood— _Reading something saucy, Root?_ — but she knew that would only be digging a hole for herself. Besides, Root was quick to recover, already straightening out her posture and giving Sameen that impish smile a little too perfectly for it to be harmless.

Shaw went on the offensive. "So this is what you do in your free time." She pointed her chin towards the general quiet bustle of the café and all the sedate normalcy it embodied, keeping her eyes on Root for her reaction. Root shrugged— and hissed in pain. One small wrinkle showed itself between her eyebrows. She was stiff for a moment, then settled back against the booth. She let her head loll back, staring up at the hanging snowball lights. Shaw glimpsed the cords of Root's neck, drawn tightly like a bow.  
"I don't usually have free time," she pointed out, "and right now I have a few too many restrictions to enjoy myself the way I normally would." The tiredness slipped away from her countenance for a moment, replaced by a smirk. She tilted her head to look Shaw in the eye. Shaw saw the simper and knew Root had to be stopped. "Of course, you could always help entertain me—"

"Alright," Shaw interrupted immediately, her eyes rolling up to the ceiling. She shook her head back and forth.

"Alright?" Root parroted, eyebrows raised facetiously, taking great joy in turning the other woman's words around on her. Shaw narrowed her eyes at Root.

"'Alright' as in 'shut up.'" Root was still smiling, so Shaw pressed on. "What happened to your face?" Her eyes scrolled around the pale brunette's features. There was a plum shadow about her lower lip, twin-like to to her tired eyes, and a small red split as well. Root's coat concealed any other bodily injuries, but Shaw hadn't missed Root's earlier discomfort.

Root tried to smile the matter away. "Couple tokens from work. You know how it goes." She took a sip from her tea, not interested in the drink itself really, just the warmth and the distraction. Shaw knew Root must have gotten more than just a couple of nicks and bruises here and there if it was inhibiting her normal attitude: chipper and unbearably overzealous.

Shaw supposed she should enjoy Root's more subdued behavior, but she was surprised to find that she didn't. Actually, she was discomforted by the fact that that there was something else wrong with Root, something she couldn't specifically identify. She knew, at least, that it was mental, maybe even emotional, and more importantly, she knew she'd rather not be responsible for mending those wounds. _Or any of Root's wounds,_ she reminded herself.

But she had to admit that Root was important to the war against Decima. She mulled over how she could most comfortably go about ensuring The Machine's favorite puppet was performing at peak efficiency. Meanwhile, a silence settled over them, and Root felt the need to break it. "Worried about me, Shaw?" she asked, falling back on her tried and true lighten-up-the-mood-by-provoking-Shaw strategy.

"No," Shaw replied instantly, but then: "but I am concerned about how we're going to beat Samaritan if you don't stop getting the shit beaten out of you." She paused, wondering if that was too blunt. She allowed a short pause to gauge Root's reaction. There was none. "What happened?"

Root thought about giving a vague answer, but she didn't want to risk Shaw's ire. Normally she'd have fun with it, but she suddenly felt too exhausted to play. She sighed through her nares, resting her against the cool glass. Her hat shifted. Shaw watched as Root's pale hand quickly snapped up to her right ear to pull it back over her implant. "Well, at the crack of dawn this morning there were three thugs when I expected one." Shaw gave her a critical look, knowing that alone wouldn't be enough to stop anyone in Finch's little team, spurring Root to quickly add in her own defense, "I was still recovering from an earlier injury, alright?"

Shaw paused, realizing. "The stapedectomy." She watched Root's eyes go narrow, like she was squinting to make out the meaning of something. She chewed the bottom of a pink lip.

"The torture," Root corrected after a moment of silence, and she kept her eyes far away from Shaw's. "I've been completely _exhausted._ I haven't really felt awake since it happened. Going through the motions and what-not."

Root's eyelids were gradually slipping farther down her tourmaline eyes, and her lips just barely hung open. Shaw leaned forward, right hand on the table. "Root?" The dozing hacker blinked a half dozen times then refocused her vision on Shaw. She found genuine concern coloring the operative's face, and although Root suddenly felt intensely groggy, she couldn't help but feel charmed at the same time. She smiled across the table, perplexing Shaw with her constantly shifting mood. "Come on, you lunatic," she muttered in her disinterested, overcast way. "Let's get you home. Wherever that is." She stood up and shifted out from behind the table, but then she crossed her arms at Root as if to say, _But I'm not gonna hold your hand._

Root gave a wistful twinkle of a laugh. "Texas," she said fondly, thinking of her mother's home in Bishop. She wondered how the new family might have changed the place. When she stood up, she tucked her hands in the pockets of her coat and bumped Shaw's arm with her own. She scooped her neck down a bit to get closer to eye level with Sameen and confided with an effervescent smile, "But you can just walk me back to my hotel."

They stepped out into the raw air. The wind was so cold that it felt sharp against their skin. Shaw sank her head between her stiff, raised shoulders, and Root thought she looked a bit like a turtle retreating into its shell. If that turtle was a pretty woman, anyway. And perpetually scowling.

"So what have you been up to?" Root queried casually as they set off down the sidewalk. She liked to pretend they were just two people ambling through the city, maybe even tourists who were just glad to be privileged enough to see the world. But Root didn't go anywhere just for fun anymore. Hell, even her "me time" at Donnie's was just another one of The Machine's orders. But it entertained her, maybe even a little too much, to envision her and Shaw leading different lives.

"Helping Reese and Finch with a number," Shaw replied. "Well, three numbers. One ordered hits on the other two, some girls barely out of college."

"They're starting young," Root remarked, more concerned than joking.

Shaw chuckled to herself. "You're one to talk, Little Miss Sunshine. Didn't you hank a bank or something when you were, like, ten?"

Root's eyes twinkled while a smile took over her face. "I was a little older than _that_ ," she objected, feigning offense. Shaw shook her head, amused. "Besides, it was for a good cause. What did your numbers get themselves into?"

Root was surprised to see Shaw's face darken at the question. It took the hacker a moment to name the expression since she didn't see Shaw's version of it much: sympathy. And it was mixed with a familiar one, too: anger. "They were just trying to put themselves through school," Shaw clipped. "Neither of them came from any money. The guy who ordered the hit said he'd pay if he could— videotape them. Regularly." Her upper lip was bent, disgusted.

Root was confused for just a second, and then she understood. "Sick fuck," she muttered, hands tightening into fists inside her coat. "I'm guessing they wanted out."

Shaw nodded. "But they couldn't go to the police, so Reese left Detective Riley behind and we sorted things out with the hitmen."

They checked for cars, then crossed the street.

"And the two girls?" Root asked.

"Safehouses. And Finch told them he'd cover their tuition."

Shaw smiled. It felt good to see good come out of work she had done. With Control, it was always about killing before someone else could, sparing the American people a lot of suffering but technically leaving things just as they were before. There was no meeting the families she and her partner had personally saved and seeing that they were glad to still be alive. Granted, Shaw wasn't big on being caretaker to a bunch of overemotional would-be victims, and she didn't do her job just so she could pat herself on the back every night. But she had to admit that it felt great to help build a future for someone who really needed. In addition to snuffing out a worthless lowlife.

Root picked up on the subtle changes in Shaw's demeanor: the way her eyes softened just a little bit, how she dipped her head down when she smiled. The taller woman couldn't help but feel happy for Shaw and, for some reason, felt a sort of pride for her as well. "Attagirl, Sameen," she praised. "Harry and Johnny Boy seem to be rubbing off on you." Shaw looked up at her, trying halfheartedly to disguise her previous expression with unamused deadpan. "But don't worry. You've still got your misanthropic charm." Shaw laughed, pleased with Root's remark for once. Or maybe she was just in a forgiving mood. Root couldn't tell, but she didn't care much either. She just liked to see Shaw's reserved little smiles.

"Think I can get Finch to give me Golden Boy of the Month?"

Root laughed at the joke and leaned towards her copmanion's ear like she was about to share some scandalous intel. "No," she whispered, and Shaw's neck flushed with goose bumps. The shorter woman scolded herself for still not being entirely resistant to Root's little jabs. "But if you wanted a reward, you could've just asked me."

Shaw came to a stop. Busy New Yorkers rushed around her like a river running over rocks, completely unconcerned with the going-ons of the little fish so long as it kept flowing downstream. "I'm not gonna walk you home if you keep talking like that," Sameen warned. Root wondered what it would take to get her to play along someday.

"We're here, actually." Root looked up the length of the Park South hotel. Its maroon brick upper half sat atop cheap-looking white pillars. More importantly, it was an inconspicuous establishment, and it was owned by people who had an especially earnest respect for guests' privacy, which Root appreciated. Her spare P320 and Glock 42 sitting on her bed didn't like to be walked in on. "I've got a hot bath and a martini with my name on it," Root sang. R&R didn't seem so bad to her when she was too exhausted to walk any farther. "I might even be able to sleep if I have enough of them."

Shaw had pointed her toes to leave, but something invisible held her back a moment. She gnawed at her lip while she debated if she should say what she felt compelled to, or if she should just take her leave in silence.

Several years ago, Shaw had been where Root currently stood: her first torture, or rather, the first torture actually inflicted onto her. The man next to her in the dark, dank cellar broke— he hadn't even lasted half an hour— and when the torturers disposed of his body they decided they were bored and wouldn't let Shaw's go to waste. And so the cutting and bludgeoning persisted for nine more hours.

Sameen's chest inflated as she took a deep breath, then sank when she let out a depressurizing sigh. "Look, Root." She forced herself to gaze straight into the hacker's now quizzical brown eyes. There was a mournfulness to Sameen's sudden severity, and Root was both unsettled and intrigued. Shaw's mouth hung open as she tried to discern what to say and what not to say. She hadn't really thought that far, and besides, she never knew how people would take the things she said. She shook her head, frustrated, and glared up at the grey sky.

Root knew the merciful thing to do would be to tell Shaw that it was okay, that she didn't have to say whatever it was she was trying to say if she couldn't figure out how. But Root desperately wanted to hear whatever it was that caught in Shaw's mouth. She decided she would compromise. She reached out, first to grab Shaw's hand— a reflex, but she decided against it and opted to tape Shaw's right arm with the back of her right hand. "Hey," she said, her confusion permeating her voice in a tenuous drawl. She waited for Shaw to look at her, and then she asked, "Would it be easier to do this with drinks in our hands?" She tried to thaw out the tension of whatever was going on in Shaw's mind with an innocent smile; no flirtation, just patience. "I'll buy."

Shaw just wanted to forget about it and leave Root to her own devices. _I patched myself together all by myself when it happened to me. She can do it, too,_ she thought. But Shaw actually knew better. And she liked the idea of free alcohol.

"You had me at drinks," she said, smirking.


	2. Chapter 2

The lounge in Root's hotel was ideal for the business at hand. Even at four, there were at least a dozen patrons milling about in the warmly lit bar, sipping dutifully at their drinks between velvety laughter and whispered confidences. Root and Shaw found a sofa tucked into a dim secluded nook in the back. Naturally, they debated over who should sit on the side that gave a better view of the entrance and exit. Shaw won and took a seat on the far side. Root supposed she was too tired to be on watch duty anyway. She bit through her soreness while she removed her coat.

A man came over and asked about drinks. "Charge it on Eleanor McAvery," Root requested with a saccharine smile. She had to admit that she could be a little too giddy at times about being able to try out names, but she had always felt that "Samantha Groves" was too bland. The man gave a polite nod and hurried off.

They were both underdressed for the venue but neither of them had the energy to care. As a matter of fact, Root had very little energy to expend on anything; it was only the prospect of experiencing Shaw's company that stimulated her enough to stay awake.

For a while they sat in a silence that was not quite comfortable but not troublesome either. Root was wondering with a burning curiosity about Shaw's allusion at the front of the Park South but knew better than to dive into what seemed like serious business before they indulged in the promised refreshments. She watched Shaw busy herself with the dish of pistachios on the coffee table, tearing through one after another with no breaks in between. Her elbows rested on her knees, and Root noticed that a small dimple appeared near the back of her jaw when she chewed. "Missed lunch?" Root inquired. Shaw grunted in response, then clapped her hands clean and folded them between her separated knees. Root watched her watch the other people in the lounge. She wondered what the former ISA operative thought of them, and then an idea came to her.

"Let's play a game," she proposed cheerfully, sitting upright. She waved a long pale hand toward the general commotion of the lounge. "What do you think these people's lives are like? What do they do with themselves?"

Shaw raised an eyebrow at Root, then conceded a smile that caused the corner of her eyes to crinkle softly. "I'm down. But no hacking their phones or anything," she stipulated, wanting to make sure that if there was a way to win this game, she'd have a fair chance.

Root just gave Shaw a quick wink, then twisted around in her seat so her elbow rested on the arm of the sofa. "That one. Sandy hair, plaid shirt." Shaw identified the man. He was a fairly big guy, pale like a ghost but ostensibly strong as a bull. He had a crisp flannel shirt tucked into black jeans and dark brown boots. Root turned back to look at Shaw, whose thin fingers cradled her chin in a handsome, thoughtful way. The hacker took note of how Shaw protruded her lips when she was concentrating hard.

Shaw was silent for a few seconds, then said, "He's a white collar worker. Not from around here."

Root raised an eyebrow, wondering how Shaw could be as confident in the deduction as she sounded. Shaw pointed so Root would look at him again. "Check out his build. He's got skinny little forearms but he's bulky in the upper arms and chest. If the man made a living picking up heavy shit, he'd have better muscle distribution below the elbows."

Root tilted her head back, recognizing the clues. "Okay, I can see it. Plus, he's pale. And his fashion sense is so not New York City corporate. Maybe he lives in a suburb out in Connecticut or something."

"Exactly. Explains why he looks constipated." The man in question stood stiffly at the bar instead of seating himself on a stool, and his shoulders were stuck at his ears while he drank his glass of amber liquid. He refused to look anywhere but at the rim of his cup, and he shook his head miserably from time to time. "He's got new pants, too. There's no wallet sag."

Root crinkled her brow and smiled amusedly at Shaw, who shrugged with faux innocence and popped a pistachio into her mouth. Her eyes had a mischievous but ultimately tame glow about them.

The bartender came over and set their drinks down. The two women wasted no time bringing their lips to the brims of their glasses. They listened to the ice clatter around, and they carried on with their game for some time. Of the thirteen other patrons, Root and Shaw found reason— reason which grew less and less plausible as time went on— to suspect them of several scandals, including one love triangle, two instances of possible infidelity, and three potential personality disorder diagnoses, all of them supplied by Shaw. The other woman was beginning to doubt the former doctor's psychiatric credentials as her reason became more and more tenuous. Root eventually stopped playing, content to just listen to Shaw ramble on about the imagined drama of each of the patients, discerned from observations that were only occasionally insightful after they had their first few drinks. She hadn't known Shaw to be so talkative, but it amused Root very much.

The game faded away eventually and the two women returned to silence, the vestiges of their amusement still playing in their eyes and the muscles of their cheeks. Root saw that Shaw was looking at her over the brim of her glass and she felt herself deflating despite her curiosity. The longer they went without giggling, the harder it became to ignore the intended topic of conversation, the reason why Root had invited Shaw for drinks in the first place. Or at least, the ostensible reason. Root released her straw from between her lips and crossed her legs, unconsciously making herself compact to brace for the inevitable shift in mood. Shaw could sense it, too; she sighed, set her drink down on the table, and reclined into the couch. Her hand rubbed at the back of her neck. "Look," she exhaled, giving a noncommittal gesture. "I don't know how to say this exactly, and I don't really like to do the whole share-and-care thing, like, ever." She took a deep breath and twisted around so her left knee was pointed at Root. Root watched Shaw's dark eyes scan over the room. She leaned in a little to compensate for her hushed tone and said gravely, "but you were tortured."

The atmosphere suddenly thickened as if brutal hands were wrapping around an imaginary throat. Root couldn't move under Sameen's gaze, even when her chest cavity began to undulate. There was an arresting sincerity in her bottomless brown eyes, a level of honesty so unfamiliar and unexpected that Root felt nude and inarticulate and off-balance. Shaw's discomfort spurred her on to say what she needed to and be done with it all. "I've been through it, too. It's hard on the body, obviously, but also, it..." She tilted her head as if the right words might fall out. "It takes a while to get your head back in the game, too."

Root swallowed. She didn't expect that *this* was the conversation they were going to be having.

"Several years ago, I had a new kid running with me. This was when I was with the ISA." Her brow began to twitch. A crease in the corner of her mouth flickered in and out of sight. She took a deep, sudden breath, then looked passively over Root's head rather than at her. Her words became more rushed as she tried to get through the anecdote and to the point as quickly as possible. "The terrorists weren't that good at searching people. I had a razor in my sleeve, and I used it to cut my hands loose, but by the time that happened there were too many of them in the room for me to fight. And my trainee cracked." Sameen looked determinedly at anywhere but Root. Her lips went taut. Little shadows appeared on her jaw when she pressed her teeth together. Her eyes narrowed to reject the tears that might have formed had she not forgotten how to cry so long ago. "He was going to spill everything. So I cut his throat." Her throat bobbed. Her eyes went cold and black like a match blown out in the wind. Root didn't know what to say at first, so she reached for Shaw's knee, watching how her eyes immediately went to the point of contact.

"You did what you had to," she murmured weakly. "Your job demanded you make an impossible decision, so you did. You did what you had to." She could feel the inadequacy of her consolation and it made her want to cringe, but she knew there were no words that could make everything better.

Shaw cleared her throat and looked at the other woman. "I know," she said so firmly she sounded obstinate. "My point is, we think we're one thing— we think we're going to be strong enough, good enough— but then we find out that all we really are is animals."

The gravity of Shaw's words made Root's spine shake coldly simply because she *understood* them. Root hadn't broken during the interrogation with Control. She had had a stapedectomy performed on her without anesthesia nor caring hands. She had had at least six induced heart attacks, had been cut, beaten, and demeaned. And though she was still alive to tell the tale, and although she and The Machine were still safe, Root had gone irrevocably far into the depths of a black, lightless ocean. And all she knew how to do at one point was breathe, sweat, scream— *wish* that she would live.

Shaw felt painfully like a turtle without a shell. She leaned away, snatched up her drink, and tipped the last of it down her throat. The cup clanked hard against the table when she set it down. "I'm trying to spare you some recovery time," she blurted, looking at the wall. "So maybe next time The Machine sends you into a fight, you can handle three goons in an alleyway."

Root recoiled a bit. She knew what Shaw was doing; she had wandered too close to the edge of her comfort zone and now she was shoving her way back in. But understanding didn't protect Root from the abrasions of Shaw's defensiveness, not when Root felt so vulnerable herself. Still, she found it was not so hard to forgive Shaw— actually, it was startlingly easy for her. She was grateful and stunned and intensely compassionate, for it was one thing to have endured torture herself and something else entirely for Shaw to have relived it for Root. She draped her arm over the back of the sofa to bridge the distance between them, then touched Shaw's shoulder, figuring anything more intimate would only make Shaw more uncomfortable. She put on her best smile and said, "Thank you." She waited for Shaw to receive the message with her eyes, and when she did, she felt the dissipation of something tight and tense that she hadn't realized was palpable until it was gone. Then she made herself laugh. "Now would you like another drink?"

Shaw was too tired to laugh audibly, but she did let out a heavy breath she hadn't realized she was holding. She gave a stressful laugh as if to say Yes, please, when she heard a phone buzz. Shaw removed her phone from her pocket and checked her screen. *No Data.*

"I think this is Finch," she said. She tapped the screen with her thumb and put the device to her ear. "Harold?" Root watched Shaw's expression go from mildly irritated to stone cold. She still had the phone to her ear when she shot up from her seat and grabbed her coat. "I'm on it." She shoved the device into her pocket and looked down at Root. "There's another person in trouble, someone involved in the case from today."

"I'm coming with you," Root insisted.

Shaw knew there was no time to argue. They strode determinedly across the lounge towards the exit. "Fine, Root, but I'm—"

"Driving," the other woman finished. They both made smug little smiles at each other, Shaw because she liked having the driver's seat conceded to her and Root because the other woman was just so predictable.

They reentered the noisy, smelly commotion of the city. Root took a right turn without hesitation, making her way towards an unlocked vehicle that The Machine had spotted for them. It was a dusty grey little hatchback. Shaw wasn't expecting a Maserati, but she groaned at the sight of the terribly unfashionable vehicle. "I don't know what's more embarrassing, driving one of these things or riding in one."

"You wanna switch?" Root inquired jokingly, knowing Shaw would never give up control. Shaw gave a single hard chuckle as an answer and pulled the driver's side door open.

* * *

 **A/N: Thanks so much for reading. Would love to know what you think! Enjoy your day please :)**


	3. Chapter 3

Finch was heaving air by the time he collapsed into his chair. He tore off his gloves and discarded them somewhere on the floor. Then he began to tap away at the console, entering the Dewey Decimal numbers from the books. He hit the 'enter' key with a little extra vigor, and then a photo I.D. appeared on-screen. "Jessandra Ruíz," Finch muttered. Although her photo was completely unfamiliar, her name arrested his attention. He had seen "Jessandra" somewhere before, sometime recently— yes, he had seen it while going through the perpetrator's files that morning. This knowledge did nothing to slow his heart rate as he clicked into the perp's files again and ran a search for the new number's name. He rediscovered an old email written three months ago. It was a correspondence between the perp, using his screen name "Bomber," and a "Jessandra J."

 _B: Confirmed, then. Meet tomorrow at Archipelago, 7pm. Man in red shirt._

There was another message with a time stamp twenty-six hours newer.

 _B: Why didn't you meet like we agreed? I don't take these mishaps lightly._

There was no reply nor any other mention of a Jessandra, at least not after a cursory scan. Finch hadn't thought anything of the interaction before, and though he still wasn't sure of its meaning, he knew that Miss Ruíz would be in danger. He grabbed his phone and dialed John, who answered several seconds later with the thunderous retort of gunfire.

"I'm a little busy, Finch," John intoned stiffly. There were three loud bangs. "Is this a call Shaw can take instead?"

Harold squirmed. He knew from her government I.D., Miss Ruíz was only seventeen years old. The circumstances had to be navigated very carefully, gently, even. And in Harold's opinion, Shaw did not seem to possess a proclivity for more delicate methods. But then there was another burst from the phone, and Harold screwed his eyes shut in aggravation. "Yes, fine," he conceded reluctantly. "I'll contact Miss Shaw." He removed the phone from his ear and was about to disconnect when he quickly added, "Good luck with your... situation."

Harold dialed Shaw and put her on speaker, setting his phone to the side so he could use both hands to sift through the computer files. The phone buzzed while it waited for the other end to connect to the call. He had to find a more recent connection between Bomber and Miss Ruíz if they were going to have any way to protect her. He clicked away at his mouse and flit his fingers across the keyboard busily. He noticed Bomber had changed his passwords and added additional security measures since his plans were foiled earlier in the day— a smart move, but inadequate since Harold was able to slip back into his information rather easily. He accessed Bomber's latest correspondences and found a new entry, time-stamped fifteen minutes ago. It was a conversation between only two identities, Bomber and "Mallet." There was mention of a large sum of money and, more alarmingly, there was an address appended to the end of the message. Harold recognized it to be in a rough neighborhood. He figured it was most likely a housing project.

And then, before his eyes, a new message appeared in the correspondence. It was an attachment. Harold opened it and came face-to-face with a photograph of about three-fourths of a young girl's face, framed awkwardly and taken at an unflattering angle— taken unwittingly, as if the webcam of a laptop had been reverse-engineered.

The phone intoned twice more, and finally, the call connected. "Miss Shaw!" Harold exclaimed. "We have a new number, and I believe she is somehow connected to our criminal from earlier in the day— and no, I have not located him yet. But he's ordered a hit on our number, and I'm afraid his hitmen might have already been dispatched. I'm sending you the address and some files." He paused. "I'd keep you on the line, but I fear I might need to check in with John. Call me when you locate our number."

He waited for Shaw to give him the affirmative, then disconnected the call. Harold fell back into his seat and heaved a great sigh. He lifted off his glasses so he could rub his eyes with his chapped hands. "They never stop coming," he whispered exhaustedly to himself.

—

The car lurched around daredevil pedestrians and bicyclists. Shaw spared nto a single bicyclist her ire; she didn't honk or yell out the window, but she called them a slew of colorful names in agitation. "What kind of complete _moron_ rides a _bike_ in this city?" She would give a stiff little shake of her head and promise, "Natural selection's coming for them."

Meanwhile, Root plucked up Shaw's cell phone out of the cup holder and swiped through the documents Finch sent. At first, Shaw seemed annoyed by the hacker's requisitioning, but it was only an instinctual reaction to having her things taken by other people. She looked over at the phone briefly, glimpsing the head shot of a teenager with rich brown skin and dark hair.

"Jessandra Luisa Ruíz, seventeen," Root read aloud. "There are two emails here. One is a correspondence between Jessandra and some guy named Bomber."

"That's the guy who ordered the hits on our college students," Shaw explained, cutting down a one-way. "What's the second email?"

Root skimmed it quickly. "It's a three-month-old conversation between Jessandra and Bomber. Looks pretty anonymous; no photos, no location stamp. Our number reached out to meet him but she stood him up." Root pursed her lips. "Could be she had plans for him."

Shaw gave a low, affirmative hum. "We all have plans for someone," she said darkly.

Knowing Shaw would be too preoccupied to protest too much, Root took the opportunity to observe the other woman. She had a professional coolness about her while she drove. Even when their bodies were swept side to side by the motion of the vehicle, Shaw maintained an unshakably stony expression as if she were in complete control— except, of course, when she saw bicycles in the road. Root felt rather at ease in the shotgun seat. If she had to have a rule-breaking chauffeur to propel her through New York in a large metal box, she figured she could do much worse than someone as self-assured and self-reliant as Sameen. She was a calculated risk taker, and seemingly a good one.

Shaw signaled and turned right. When she adjusted her eyesight in the same direction, she caught Root in the act of staring. Root's first instinct was to look away, but she made herself give a coy smile and stay the course as if she wanted to be caught. Maybe part of her did. Shaw didn't say anything, didn't even take the time to threaten Root with bodily harm. Root was glad;her heart wasn't in the game of euphemistic cat-and-mouse right then. There was too much on her mind. The conversation at the lounge had been far more personal than anything Root had planned for, and though she appreciated Shaw's temporary extension of her boundaries, there was also a strange mixture of accompanying feelings that now gnawed at her. It was like a drink; she could taste familiar notes in it but she couldn't assess the flavor as a whole. She knew only that it was a churning wave of undecipherable emotion that left her confused and even more exhausted. She was grateful for the distraction of a mission. It meant she could put off the messy process of working through her mindu ntil later and focus on something simple instead. Like acquiring Jesandra Ruíz before she was murdered.

But first, they had to get to Ruíz's last known location. According to the document Harold sent to Shaw's phone, the hitmen were to also retrieve the victim's laptop. Root's guess was that it had a GPS tracker; it was the simplest way to pinpoint someone. The location on the hit contract was, according to her estimation, at least another ten minutes away with all the traffic, and she felt that if she didn't find some way to occupy herself, she'd naturally start thinking about the lounge again. So Root turned on the radio.

Shaw instantly grumbled about it. "Turn that off, you're never going to find anything good."

Root tilted her head. She used to feel the same way when she lived in Bishop, a small town with only about ten stations, all of them garbage. But this was New York. "That's a very small town thing to say. Did you grow up in a suburb, Sameen?"

"Stop trying to find out information about my past," Shaw warned, then added, "You can't find anything good unless you go through a dozen stations, and then the song ends and some mind-melting commercial comes on." She deliberately blew a red light to expedite their journey. "And then you have to go through the channels all over again." Root had to admit that was pretty much true.

She pulled her gun out of her pocket. Shaw heard the familiar click of a weapon and shot a glance in Root's direction, trying to mask nervousness with suspicion. Root caught the look and, her head turned just a little away from Sameen, head framed by her brown hair, gave a sinister little smirk. Then Root took her time checking her weapon and stuffing it back in her pocket. Nonchalantly, she said, "Girl's gotta stay occupied somehow."

Shaw puckered her lips a bit and tipped her head as if to agree. "That's more my speed," she said, giving the road an amused look. Then she went back to business. "Root. After we neutralize this goon— there's just one of those, right?"

"According to the contract," Root replied. She might have been disappointed by the rather unexciting mission if she wasn't so tired.

"That's no fun," Shaw mumbled boredly. "But we still have to haul this girl off to someplace safe until we get rid of Bomber for good. Finch is still working on that." Root gave a nod and looked out the glass, resting her forearm over the window controls and tapping her idling fingers against the vinyl. It was all pretty standard procedure, and if Finch could hurry up with locating Bomber, she might even be able to go back to her hotel tonight.

She thought of the P320 and Glock in her room. She had left them behind in her hurry, but if she and Shaw together only had one hitman to take care of, she figured they would be fine. She was also comforted by the fact that The Machine was always watching out for her... even if She might be a bit annoyed with Her operative. The truth was that Root was disobeying Her orders to rest up by going with Shaw, but Root had offered her assistance without thinking. Of course Shaw could handle this herself— Root figured she could send the Terminator running on a bad day— but she was surprised that Shaw let her come along anyway.

Shaw pulled the car into the side of the road haphazardly and killed the engine. "Try to keep up," she taunted only semi-playfully, having already popped open her door and swung one leg out. Root followed suit, tucking her gun into the back of her pants where it would be easier for her to draw from.

The buildings in the neighborhood were marred by decay as well as the tagging of various bored youths; neon penises were everywhere. Loose brick littered the sidewalks in chipped pieces. The smell of pollution lingered with desperation. The apartment building they were looking for was especially decrepit; the front door was missing, and scraps of trash floated down from the fire escape on the side. "Ladies first," Root said under her breath, though Shaw was already in the lead. The shorter woman drew her weapon at the doorway, holding it low with both hands. She was about to step inside when she felt a hand grab her wrist. She glared at Root, who just whispered, "Maybe don't give the girl we're trying to save a reason to run from us just yet."

Shaw jerked her arm loose but holstered her weapon. "Fine. You know, you'd make a great babysitter," she scathed. Root just followed the shorter woman inside, saying, "Room four-two-one, Shaw."

They began to ascend the stairs as quickly as possible. Root's legs were long enough for her to take the steps in twos, but Shaw had to compensate by moving her feet extra quickly. Various people meandered past them on the stairs, each of them interested enough in the two unfamiliar women to stare but not enough to ask. Shaw glared at each one until she was sure they weren't any trouble while Root at them as if nothing were out of the ordinary.

They were breathing heavily once they reached the fourth floor, and part of it was because of the anticipation of a hitman being around the corner. Root hurried over to a placard hanging loosely on the wall. "Four-two-one is this way," she stated, setting off down the narrow hallway. Shaw came up on her flank, watching Root's hand lift up the back of her coat, revealing her weapon as well as her ass in jeans. Shaw raised an eyebrow, unsure if this was one of Root's games, but the hacker didn't so much as shoot a looks back at her. Shaw cradled her gun in her coat pocket.

Room 421 was the last in the hallway, and it was around a bend. When Root rounded the corner and took the first look, she drew her weapon swiftly and held it up high. "We're too late."

The door was wide open, wood splintered at the hinges, giving the two women a view of the disorder inside. It looked like a whirlwind had lived in that room and suffered a temper tantrum. Papers littered the floor along with crushed plastic cups. Styrofoam food containers spilled old chicken and lo mein onto multiple surfaces. Root entered quickly but carefully, and she and Shaw did a quick sweep of the apartment. It only took a few seconds; there was only a bathroom and a small bedroom to check.

The bedroom door was wide open. Shaw stepped inside and lowered her gun when she saw that it was empty, save a large man's body on the ground. "Body here," she called out. Shaw knelt beside him. There was a red wound burbling blood down his forehead. He had been hit with something blunt and heavy. Her eyes went to a broken lamp on the floor, still plugged in to a socket beside the bed. She watched his chest rise and fall steadily. "Alive but unconscious." She lifted up his jacket. There was an empty leather holster strapped to his side. "And missing a gun."

Just then, Shaw heard two impossibly close gunshots, imperious ccacks of thunder that shook the floor. She didn't duck and shield her head, nor did she jump behind cover. Shaw's first motion was to leap to her feet and swing around the bedroom doorway, gun raised to shoot at whoever had gotten the jump on Root. But all she saw was Root standing with her gun pointed out an open window at the street. Then Root went into overclock mode, shoving her gun into her coat pocket and sprinting out the door. "Fire escape! Let's go!" she yelled. Shaw was on edge but relieved at the same time. She spared a quick look out the window and saw a large elephant of a man prone on the street. A gun lay on the ground beside him, approached by a growing pool of blood. Not two meters away stood an immobilized woman with dark hair. She had on a navy blue jacket, insubstantial for the winter cold. There was a large laptop bag strapped over her. She looked up at Shaw in the window, and she took off down the street as fast as she could.

"Hey! Stop!" Shaw shouted out the window uselessly. She growled and ran in the direction Root had gone.

At the top of the fire escape, Shaw called down to Root. "Looks like our guy wasn't alone after all." She was annoyed by the poor intel as it almost cost the number her life, but more than that, Shaw disliked the fact that she was fortunate to have brought Root along after all. If Root hadn't seen the second armed man on the street...

The hacker was halfway down the stairwell when she jutted one arm out towards an alleyway across the street. "She went that way," she announced. She jumped down the last few steps, feeling the painful way her knees absorbed the shock, then sprinted towards the dark alley. Shaw was able to catch up when Root came to a sudden stop at the end of the way where it split into two other aisles. She and Shaw went in separate directions.

"Jessandra! We're trying to keep you safe!" Root yelled out. She looked in every direction but saw no one. It was getting dark, too. "See her anywhere?" she asked The Machine. She took Her silence as a negative. Root figured that meant Jessandra couldn't be out in the open streets; she ahd to be somewhere in the unsurveilled labyrinth of alleyways. She connected a line with Shaw through her ear piece. "Look in places where The Machine wouldn't have eyes," she advised. Sameen gave an annoyed, breathy sound.

"Why is it that so many of the people we try to save run away from us?" she complained while turning towards an alley she hadn't explored yet. She ran through it, then chose another direction to look in. They continued on that way for about fifteen minutes, at which point Shaw threw her head back and grumbled, "Root, I think we're done here."

Root could tell by her voice that Shaw was scraped by the fact that a kid had been able to elude two highly lethal agents. The hacker sighed, thoroughly exhausted by the whole day— the entire week, really— and leaned against the wall of a building. "At least she's alive," she offered tiredly. "We'll find her eventually. See you back at the car, Sam." She pressed her ear piece off and asked The Machine to give her a heads up as soon as Jessandra came back into view, knowing She could hear her through the mic in her phone. She took a moment to catch her breath, looking around in the dark shadow of the alleyway. The smell of urine was beginning to remind her of her rather unpleasant fight the previous dawn. The memory reignited her injuries; her hand went to her lower left abdomen which had begun to emit a painful clenching sensation. She rode through it for several seconds, and then grit her teeth as she went to find Sameen.

—

Shaw was leaning against the driver's side door when Root came back even though it was freezing out. She had her arms and ankles crossed and her long neck extended while she stared up absentmindedly at the night sky. There was a placid look on her face. She could have been stargazing if one could see any stars so close to the city. When she heard Root coming, Shaw slipped from her reverie and watched the taller woman adjust her knitted hat. Root's countenance had a pinched look about it, and at first Shaw thought Root was just fed up with the runaway teen, but then she noticed the sluggish way her feet moved and decided instead that Root was tired and in pain. Shaw felt that she shouldn't have brought her along— until she remembered their number would be dead if not for her.

Shaw leaned off the car and opened her door. Root walked around on the other side, connecting eyes with Shaw over the roof. "I think it's past your bedtime," Shaw said without any lilt to her voice. She ducked inside the car.

"Are you going to tuck me in, Shaw?" the other woman joked, her attitude more casual than provocative. Shaw elected not to reply and started the engine. Root could feel the vibrations of the car humming to life. It was relaxing for some reason, and once the engine warmed up and the heating kicked in, she allowed herself to close her eyes for a moment.

Shaw eventually noticed that Root was asleep. She took care to drive in a slightly more civilized way so as not to wake her. It wasn't hard with all the traffic; it was dinnertime, and it seemed that everyone and their mother was pouring into the city to grab something to eat. Shaw's stomach groaned, pissed off about not having received a lunch. Her left hand pressed against her abdomen in a vain attempt to silence it. The hungry gurgle sounded boisterously loud in the otherwise quiet car. Shaw was surprised to find that the silence was, in a small way, disappointing to her. As much as she could be annoyed with Root's playing, she kind of liked the way it filled the silence. Root didn't blabber, didn't offend; and even though their conversations were almost completely business— though often laced with threats and innuendo— they were, at least, entertaining.

Shaw was stopped behind a long queue at a red light when she thought back to the lounge. Part of her, a rather big part, wanted to squirm at the memory. She didn't like sharing; it always felt like she had shared too much. People always read too much into things and made a habit out of analyzing every little detail about someone through the lens of that one story, as if one event could explain everything, as if all there was to Shaw was that one moment. It was why she avoided therapists and psychoanalysts at all costs. There was more to her than a tragic past. And besides, she wasn't some novel to be dissected. Yet people had a way of needlessly and obnoxiously imbuing everything with feelings when they were simple enough to begin with.

She looked over at Root. Her head was tucked against the still-frosty window, chin resting on her collar bone. She had a sleepy little pout on her face and here hands curled open on the sides of her seat. For a moment Shaw thought of her as Samantha Groves. It was a name that carried the possibility of being any normal woman but also someone completely unrecognizable to Shaw. Then again, she didn't know much about Root to begin with. She could count on her being chipper in her contained but facetious way. And then there was the joke flirting. Shaw could also trust in Root's absolute devotion to The Machine. But other than those three things, Shaw didn't quite get Root yet. However, she felt that she wouldn't mind figuring her out. At the very least, it would be good to know who she was dealing with.

She noticed a vibrant green hue wash over Root's hair and face, but she didn't realize what it meant until a car behind her beeped impatiently. Sameen's head snapped back to the road. She hoofed the gas. The car lurched, and Root awoke. Shaw heard her take that initial deep inhale people do when they resurface from sleep. She made herself stare dutifully at the road while Root, a little shocked about losing consciousness, blinked away the slumber. She rubbed her cheek, her eyes, her forehead. Then she leaned forward to close the air vent that was blowing a little too much hot air onto her.

"Can't believe I fell asleep," she mumbled lamely. She was actually a bit shaken by the fact. Root normally had a hard time mustering enough peace of mind to sleep in any place, even one that she had secured and fortified first. She turned towards Shaw as if she might have some explanation.

"Hm. Is that drool?" Shaw pranked, keeping her tone serious. Root scowled, but she couldn't help but touch her mouth with the back of her hand to check. She grumbled something sarcastic about Shaw being funny, and Shaw gave a weightless laugh.

Root looked sleepily out the window, watching the red tail lights of cars streak by and reading all the bright signs of various establishments. She saw a tall, thin building with a brick front and a massive glowing outline of a sushi roll. _Archipelago._

"Shaw, look," she said, pressing her finger against the glass.

Shaw glanced at the store front, then put her eyes back on the road. "It's a sushi place, Root," she muttered.

Root said, "That's the place Jessandra was supposed to meet Bomber. The email said—" She paused, suddenly deep in thought with a crinkle in her brow. Shaw said nothing when Root grabbed her phone again. Root pulled up the file Finch sent earlier and reread the one message Jessandra had written. "It's signed 'Jessandra J.,'" she said, "but her last name is Ruíz."

"Well, if she signed with her real initials it would be too easy for Bomber to find her," Shaw rationalized, unconcerned.

Root wasn't satisfied. "But why sign a last initial at all?"

They arrived at the Park South in that moment. Shaw pulled up to the side and held the brake down. She made eye contact with Root, tilting her head back against her head rest. "I think you're reading too much into it, Nancy Drew," she soothed. Root frowned but figured Shaw was right. The false initial was probably meant to throw Bomber off by making him look for a Jessandra J. instead of a Jessandra R., she decided. "Anyway, this is you."

The car's locks clicked off. It hadn't initially occurred to Root that she was back at her hotel and could finally rest, but now that it had, she suddenly felt like she might be too tired to last the elevator ride. She turned towards Sameen with her hand on the door handle and gave her a silly look.

"You know how to make a coffee date interesting," she said.

Shaw gave her a sarcastic smile and returned, "It was tea."

Root sang a muscle little laugh and pushed the door open. "Goodnight, Sameen." Shaw just nodded, but when the door shut and Root looked in through the window, she raised her fingers off the steering wheel: a tiny wave goodbye. And then she drove off.

* * *

 **A/N: I didn't feel really great about this chapter, but I wanted to get it posted here so I could move on with the plot and begin working on the next chapter. I hope this is entertaining for you guys so far. Please let me know what you think, and more importantly, have a good day :)**


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